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ESSAY
THE EFFECT OF MODERN PARTISANSHIP ON
LEGISLATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN
THE 112TH CONGRESS

SENATOR OLYMPIA J. SNOWE*

This article examines the recent phenomenon of extreme partisanship in the
United States Senate. Throughout history, the Senate has been a legislative body
dedicated to debating and resolving the nation’s most pressing issues. However,
in recent years, paralyzing partisanship in Washington has severely impeded the
Senate’s work. Several Senate procedures, including the rules surrounding fili-
busters, cloture, and filling the amendment tree, have exacerbated this problem.
In this article, Senator Snowe describes the effects of extreme partisanship on
the Senate and offers her thoughts about how future Congresses should avoid
such setbacks going forward.

I. INTRODUCTION

Throughout our nation’s history, the United States Senate has largely
been revered as a place where the problems facing our nation are solved
after lengthy consideration and fervent debate. The United States Constitu-
tion provides the Senate with restrictions and responsibilities unique from
those of the House of Representatives, including, for instance, the require-
ment that Senators be at least thirty years old before serving and “the sole
Power to try all Impeachments.”1 In the Federalist papers, James Madison
made clear the difference between the two houses of the Legislative Branch
of American government: “The [H]ouse of Representatives will derive its
powers from the people of America . . . The Senate[,] on the other hand[,]
will derive its powers from the States, as political and co-equal societies; and
these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate.”2
In a famous anecdote, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were
discussing the need for a Senate. Washington, a proponent for the establish-
ment of a Senate, asked Jefferson why he poured his coffee into a saucer.
“To cool it,” said Jefferson, to which Washington responded, “Even so, we

* Former Member, United States Senate (R-Me.). Senator Snowe served three terms repre-
senting the people of Maine in the United States Senate, following 16 years of service as U.S.
Representative from Maine’s 2nd Congressional District from 1979 until 1995. During her
time in Congress, she co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues for 10 years
with Representative Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), as well as the Senate Centrist Coalition with
Senators Jon Breaux (D-La.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.). The author especially wishes to
acknowledge the valuable contribution of her Communications Director, Chris Averill, con-
cerning the drafting, editing, and completion of this article.
1
U.S. CONST. art. I, § 3.
2
THE FEDERALIST NO. 39, at 193 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1992).
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22 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.”3 Whether or not the
story is true, it is a fitting analogy for the unique and lofty purpose of the
United States Senate.
In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville visited the Senate, and wrote of it in
absolutely gushing terms.4 “[T]he Senate,” he said, “is composed of elo-
quent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and statesmen of
note, whose arguments would do honor to the most remarkable parliamen-
tary debates of Europe.”5 He added that Senators “represent only the ele-
vated thoughts which are current in the community, and the generous
propensities which prompt its nobler actions, rather than the petty passions
which disturb, or the vices which disgrace it.”6 To de Tocqueville, the United
States Senate was a model of governance.
Fast forward to modern times, and the United States Senate is viewed in
a less sophisticated—and less praiseworthy—manner. An April 16, 2012
story in the Washington Examiner states that the United States Senate in
2011 was “the laziest in 20 years.”7 It’s part of the “worst Congress ever”
according to multiple observers, including the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein8
and Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein, who bemoans the “decline in in-
stitutional loyalty and other norms, the near disappearance of meaningful
debate and deliberation, and a sharp decline in the ‘regular order.’” 9
The Washington Times has determined that the Senate of 2011 ranks at
the very bottom of its Legislative Futility Index—a compilation of various
“yardsticks of activity such as time spent in session, number of pages com-
piled in the Congressional Record, [and] number of bills passed and votes
taken.”10 The second worst session of the Senate? The second session of the
112th Congress, or the Senate of 2012.11 Congressional scholar Sarah Binder
perhaps summed up the state of today’s Senate best and most succinctly:
“The Senate, besieged by its members’ and leaders’ partisanship, seems
barely up to the task of solving vexing national problems, let alone the easy

3
While this story has often been repeated, its veracity is very much in doubt. Nonetheless,
it serves as an adequate metaphor for the Senate as a place for consideration and reasoned
debate. The Thomas Jefferson Found., Inc., Senatorial Saucer, MONTICELLO.ORG, http://www.
monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/senatorial-saucer (last visited Oct. 8, 2012).
4
See ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 259–60 (Henry Reeve trans.,
Sever & Francis 1863) (1835, 1840).
5
Id. at 259.
6
Id. at 260.
7
Paul Bedard, Report: Democrat-Controlled Senate Laziest in 20 Years, WASH. EXAM-
INER (Apr. 16, 2012), http://washingtonexaminer.com/report-democrat-controlled-senate-lazi-
est-in-20-years/article/493996#.UJRHOWB8uDB.
8
Ezra Klein, 14 Reasons Why This is the Worst Congress Ever, WASH. POST (July 13,
2012, 8:00 AM), http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/13/13-reasons-
why-this-is-the-worst-congress-ever.
9
Norman Ornstein, Worst. Congress. Ever., FOREIGN POLICY, July 19, 2011, http://www.
foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/19/worst_congress_ever.
10
Stephen Dinan, Senate Succeeds at Something: Futility, WASH. TIMES, July 25, 2012, at
A1.
11
Id.
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 23

ones.”12 Former Congressman Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) went a step fur-

ther: “If democracy is more about process—how decisions are made and
who makes them—than about the policies that result,” he wrote, “the United
States Senate has become not merely dysfunctional, but an actual threat to
the functioning of America’s system of government.”13
What has happened? Why is the 112th Congress on pace to pass the
fewest number of laws since 1947? Why is it that we no longer seem even
capable of passing most pieces of legislation in a bipartisan manner? The
answer lies largely in the rampant partisanship and polarization omnipresent
in today’s Washington, as this Article will set out to detail.

II. BEGINNING OF THE 112TH CONGRESS

The 112th Congress began in January 2011 with a renewed sense of

optimism for bipartisanship following a very productive lame duck session
in November and December of 2010. The term “lame duck” refers to the
period of time following the election of a new president and/or Congress and
the beginning of the next Congress on January 3rd of the following year. In
the 2010 lame duck session, Congress was able to pass a number of high-
profile and significant pieces of legislation, including: a two-year extension
of the 2001/2003 tax rates;14 the annual National Defense Authorization Act
(“NDAA”) for the following year;15 repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell (“DADT”) policy;16 and a continuing resolution to keep the government
operating into March of the following year.17 Congress also ratified the New
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (“New START”).18 Some of these bills
were routine authorizations, like the NDAA, and others were more ceremo-
nial pieces of legislation, such as the naming of post offices. Yet, in the end,
Congress passed 98 laws in the final two months of the year.19

12
Sarah Binder, Through the Looking Glass, Darkly: What has Become of the Senate?, 9
FORUM, no. 4, at art. 2, 13, available at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/arti
cles/2011/12/senate-binder/12_senate_binder.pdf.
13
Mickey Edwards, The Dysfunctional Senate, ATLANTIC (Feb. 7, 2010, 3:49 PM), http://
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/02/the-dysfunctional-senate/35503.
14
Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010,
Pub. L. No. 111-312, 124 Stat. 3296.
15
Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, Pub. L. No. 111-
383, 124 Stat. 4137.
16
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-321, 124 Stat. 3515.
17
Continuing Appropriations and Surface Transportation Extensions Act, Pub. L. No.
111-322, 124 Stat. 3518 (2010).
18
Treaty with Russia on Measures for Further Reduction & Limitation of Strategic Offen-
sive Arms, U.S.-Russ., Apr. 8, 2010, S. TREATY DOC. NO. 111-5 (2010). The Senate vote on
the New START Treaty occurred on December 22, 2010. S. TREATY DOC. NO. 111-5, Vote No.
298, Dec. 22, 2010 (Treaty Ratified 71-26).
19
Browse Public Laws: 111th Congress, LIBRARY OF CONG., http://thomas.loc.gov/home/
LegislativeData.php?&n=PublicLaws&c=111 (last visited Oct. 31, 2012) (laws passed by the
Congress in November and December 2010 are Pub. L. No. 111-285 through Pub. L. No. 111-
383).
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24 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

Additionally, many people, including myself, believed that the chal-

lenges facing our nation were too great for us to resort to the partisanship of
recent years. Unemployment remained far too high at 9.4 percent in Decem-
ber 2010.20 The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis
on December 22, 2010 announced that Gross Domestic Product grew at an
annual rate of 2.6 percent in the third quarter of 201021—better than previ-
ously, but no indication that our economy was out of the woods.

III. CONGRESS: THE MOST POLARIZED SINCE RECONSTRUCTION

The 2010 Midterm elections were viewed by many as a desire for

change in Washington after two years of Democratic control of both the
Executive and Legislative Branches of the Federal government. According
to a late November 2010 Marist poll, 72 percent of respondents said
“Republicans should work with Democrats and President Barack Obama to
get things done.”22 Yet little has changed for the positive with respect to how
Congress has operated in the two years following that historic election,
which resulted in “the largest reshuffling of the House of Representatives in
50 years.”23
Indeed, political scientists who study Congress have noted that the two
chambers remain more polarized than at any point in recent memory. Keith
Poole and Howard Rosenthal, two such scholars, have written:
[p]olarization declined in both chambers from roughly the begin-
ning of the 20th Century until World War II. It was then fairly
stable until the late 1970s and has been increasing steadily over the
past 25 years . . . . Interestingly, Congresses 100-112, if anything,
mark an acceleration of the trend (especially in the House). Note,
however, that the acceleration is smooth and does not show a par-
ticular jump in polarization induced by the large Republican fresh-
man class elected in 1994. Polarization in the House and Senate is
now at the highest level since the end of Reconstruction.24
So Congress has become progressively more divided and polarized over
time, arriving at today’s pinnacle of partisanship.

20
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, BUREAU OF LABOR STATIS-
TICS, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 (last visited Nov. 2, 2012).
21
U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, National Income and Product Accounts Gross Domestic
Product, 3rd Quarter 2010, BUREAU OF ECON. ANALYSIS (Dec. 22, 2010), http://www.bea.
gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2010/gdp3q10_3rd.htm.
22
11/29: Voters Want Compromise Across the Aisle But Doubt it Will Happen, MARIST
POLL (Nov. 29, 2011), http://maristpoll.marist.edu/1129-voters-want-compromise-across-the-
aisle-but-doubt-it-will-happen.
23
Marjorie Connelly & Bill Marsh, Rightward, March, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 7, 2010, at
WK3.
24
Keith Poole & Howard Rosenthal, The Polarization of Congressional Parties,
VOTEVIEW (May 10, 2012), http://voteview.com/political_polarization.asp (emphasis omitted).
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 25

There is additional evidence that points to today’s polarized atmosphere

in the Congress. As part of the National Journal’s annual Vote Ratings, the
magazine analyzes the votes of members of Congress on liberal and con-
servative scales regarding economic, social, and foreign-policy issues.25 Ac-
cording to the February 25, 2012 article unveiling the 2011 vote ratings,
“[f]or the second year in a row but only the third time in the 30 years that
National Journal has published these ratings, no Senate Democrats compiled
a voting record to the right of any Senate Republican, and no Republican
came down on the left of any Senate Democrat.26
For the Senate, this is a dramatic change in composition from just three
decades prior. “In 1982, when National Journal published its first set of
voting ratings, 58 Senators—a majority of the 100-member chamber—com-
piled records that fell between the most conservative Democrat (Edward
Zorinsky of Nebraska) and the most liberal Republican (Lowell Weicker of
Connecticut).”27
The magazine reported a similar trend in the House of Representa-
tives.28 “The House in 1982 was chock-full of ‘Boll Weevils’ (conservative
Democrats) and ‘Gypsy Moths’ (liberal Republicans),” as I can personally
attest.29 “That year’s National Journal ratings found 344 House members
whose voting records fell between the most liberal Republican and the most
conservative Democrat. Today, the number is 16,” which represents less
than four percent of the entire chamber.30
Additionally, the political reality in many states has changed over the
past few decades. There are fewer so-called “swing states” today, as the
“red” states get redder and the “blue” states bluer. One indication of this
trend is the dwindling number of Senators whose state voted for the opposite
party’s nominee in the previous presidential election. For instance, I re-
present Maine as a Republican, but my state has voted for the Democratic
nominee for president in each election since 1992.31 After the 1984 elections,
there were 49 such Senators, a number that rose to 57 following the 1986
elections.32 Today, the number stands at 25, which will become 21 with the
advent of the 113th Congress.33 Such a phenomenon ensures less political

25
Cf. John Aloysius Farrell, Divided We Stand, NAT’L J., Feb. 23, 2012, available at http://
www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/divided-we-stand-20120223.
26
Id.
27
Id.
28
Id.
29
Id.
30
Id.
31
See Election Results, MAINE.GOV, http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/prior1st.htm (last
visited Oct. 14, 2012).
32
See FED. ELECTION COMM’N, FEDERAL ELECTIONS 86 3–8 (1987); FED. ELECTION
COMM’N, FEDERAL ELECTIONS 84 3–23 (1985); FED. ELECTION COMM’N, FEDERAL ELECTIONS
82 1–7 (1982); CLERK OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, STATISTICS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL
AND CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION OF NOVEMBER 4, 1980 1–70 (1981).
33
See FED. ELECTION COMM’N, FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2008 43–78 (2009); FED. ELECTION
COMM’N, FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2010 38 (2011); 2012 Presidential Election Results, WASH.
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26 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

incentive for members to work together, because the states themselves are
becoming more homogeneously conservative or liberal.
Without a doubt, polarization has taken root in both chambers of the
United States Congress for a variety of reasons. Consider, for instance, the
constant demands for content and ratings among the 24-hour news cycle,
which serves to accelerate the polarization of viewpoints and entrench
policymakers before thoughtful debate even has the opportunity to take hold.
Indeed, I often refer to this phenomenon as being defined through the prism
of either Fox News on the one hand, or MSNBC on the other.
Additionally, contemplate the role the explosion of so-called “third
party groups” has had in recent years. Funded by single-ideology advocates,
these groups spend 71 percent of their budgets funding campaign activities
to oppose, rather than support, candidates.34 And these groups have astound-
ing amounts of money. In 1990, just 23 years ago, total outside spending in
that election was just $7.2 million.35 Fast forward to 2010, and it was $295
million, a number that reflects the recent rise of so-called Super PACS.36 In
2012, the total exceeded $1 billion.37
The question is, what impact has the polarization borne from such fac-
tors had on the effectiveness of the two Congressional bodies to function as
problem-solving, legislative institutions? There are a number of timely and
illustrative examples of how the widespread polarization in Congress has
affected our ability to perform our jobs as legislators. Many of these concern
procedural norms within the Senate—such as the cloture rule, filibuster, and
right to unlimited debate. As Binder has noted, “Both parties expect that the
other party will fully exploit its procedural rights, leaving each side to take
increasingly aggressive steps that anticipate and attempt to undercut the
other party’s tactics.”38 We now have what amounts to a “parliamentary
arms race between the two political parties and their leaders,” she notes, and
what I call a perversion of the norms—distorting the traditions and rules of
the Senate to serve an individual party’s political goals.39 Let me begin by
examining some recent trends regarding Senate rules and procedures that

POST, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/election-map-2012/president
(last visited Nov. 10, 2012); 2012 U.S. Senate Election Results, WASH. POST, http://www.
washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/election-map-2012/senate (last visited Nov. 10,
2012). This figure assumes that Senator-elect Angus King (I-Me.) will caucus with the Demo-
cratic party.
34
Becca Heller, A Half-Billion in Outside Influence: What Else Could the Money Buy?,
SUNLIGHT FOUND. REPORTING GRP. (Sept. 27, 2012), http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/
2012/what-could-we-buy-half-billion.
35
Ctr. for Responsive Politics, Total Outside Spending by Election Cycle, Excluding Party
Committees, OPENSECRETS.ORG, http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/cycle_tots.php
(last visited Nov. 1, 2012).
36
Id.
37
Id.
38
Binder, supra note 12. R
39
Binder, supra note 12.
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 27

have become factors of enhanced polarization and decreased legislative ef-

fectiveness, before turning to specific pieces of affected legislation.

IV. HOW POLARIZATION HAS IMPACTED LEGISLATING

A. Political Messaging

Much of what occurs in Congress today is what is often called “politi-

cal messaging.” Rather than putting forward a plausible, realistic solution to
a problem, members on both sides offer legislation that is designed to make
a political statement. Specifically, the bill or amendment is drafted to make
the opposing side look bad on an issue and it is not intended to ever actually
pass.
Several Capitol Hill-based newspapers have written about this phenom-
enon, which is regularly employed by both Republicans and Democrats. A
March 19, 2012 article in Roll Call noted that “Senate Majority Whip Dick
Durbin ([D]-Ill.) has been working with Democrats facing re-election to
help organize and develop message amendments to counter the GOP on gas
prices and the Keystone XL oil pipeline, another tool Republicans have used
this year to attack the president on jobs.”40 So while Republicans continued
to hold votes on the Keystone XL pipeline—which the President indicated
he had concerns with at that time—Democrats decided to offer their own
versions of messaging amendments to put pressure on Republicans.
The New York Times editorial board discussed the issue in a June 8,
2012 editorial entitled The Bills to Nowhere.41 The authors wrote that
“[p]olitical-message bills have sprouted like weeds in the last few years, the
product of extreme polarization and stalemate. Elected officials have to
show that they’re doing something, so they propose bills designed only to
create a talking point against the other side.”42 The Times cited several ex-
amples, including legislation to repeal parts of the health care reform law
passed in 2010—which has passed the House of Representatives, but not the
Senate—and the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was “designed to embarrass
Mitt Romney and other Republicans.”43
As I have often said, messaging amendments don’t put food on the ta-
ble, and they don’t help create jobs. They are just that: messaging. And they
fail to help members of Congress solve the very real problems facing the
nation. They represent the easy way out, so to speak; we demonstrate that
we’re arguing about issues that often matter greatly to the American people,
but nothing gets accomplished.

40
Meredith Shiner, In Senate, Democrats Try to Pad Resumes, ROLL CALL, Mar. 19, 2012,
at 1.
41
Editorial, The Bills to Nowhere, N.Y. TIMES, June 8, 2012, at A26.
42
Id.
43
Id.
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28 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

B. Filibuster

The filibuster is a unique maneuver. There is no Senate rule that sets

forth the use of a filibuster; it is a procedure that is employed to prevent a
piece of legislation from receiving a vote.44 As the Congressional Research
Service has noted, “possibilities for filibustering exist because Senate rules
deliberately lack provisions that would place specific limits on Senators’
rights and opportunities in the legislative process.”45
There has been much discussion of the term filibuster in recent years
because it is an easy concept to understand at its basic level—blocking a
vote. But the filibuster is much more complicated precisely because there are
no rules related to it. Instead, Senate rules require 60 votes to agree to limit
debate in what is known as the “cloture” rule (more in the next section).46
As such, any time the Senate does not agree to cloture, one can declare that
the bill has been “filibustered,” whether or not that was the intent of those
voting against the motion.
But, in a very real sense, the filibuster has the potential to bring the
Senate to a grinding halt. If the minority were to filibuster every piece of
legislation that comes to the Senate floor, the Senate would be unable to
make progress on those bills, and nothing could be accomplished. As such,
there has been a public debate both inside and outside the Senate regarding
whether there is a necessity for filibuster reform.47
Proponents of reform, like Ezra Klein, point to the Federalist papers to
justify their belief.48 Specifically, in Federalist 22, Alexander Hamilton de-
scribes requiring a supermajority to pass all legislation or nominations in
direct terms: “its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy
the energy of government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice or artifices
of an insignificant, turbulent or corrupt junta, to the regular deliberations and
decisions of a respectable majority.”49
But to those who view the filibuster as a tool to slow the action of the
Senate in order to provide appropriate time to consider legislation, eliminat-
ing or significantly changing the filibuster represents a threat to minority
rights, essentially blocking the minority from having a say in the final pas-
sage of any legislation. What is clear, however, is that the filibuster is part of

44
See Filibuster and Cloture, U.S. SENATE, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/
common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm (last visited Nov. 2, 2012).
45
See RICHARD S. BETH ET AL., CONG. RESEARCH SERV., RL30360, FILIBUSTER AND CLO-
TURE IN THE SENATE 1 (2011) (emphasis omitted).
46
See CHRISTOPHER M. DAVIS, CONG. RESEARCH SERV., 98-425, INVOKING CLOTURE IN
THE SENATE 1 (2011).
47
Manu Raju & Scott Wong, Filibuster Talks to Drive Senate Recess, POLITICO (Jan. 6,
2011), http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47186.html.
48
See Ezra Klein, Is the Filibuster Unconstitutional?, WASH. POST., May 15, 2012, at A11
(citing Emmet J. Bondurant, The Senate Filibuster: The Politics of Obstruction, 48 HARV. J. ON
LEGIS. 467, 493–94 (2011)).
49
Id.
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the ongoing discussion on how to make the Senate more effective and less
deadlocked. But there are two other rules and procedures that have received
far less attention—but deserve a closer look—in explaining the modern
Senate.

C. The Cloture Rule

In a 2010 piece for The New Yorker, author George Packer rightly
stated that “[m]any of the Senate’s antique rules and precedents have been
warped beyond recognition by the modern pressures of partisanship.”50 One
need look no further than the cloture rule for a fundamental example of the
truth of this statement.
The Senate instituted a cloture rule in 1917 in order to curtail the rou-
tine filibusters of the day.51 At the time it was established, the rule required a
two-thirds majority in order to end debate—a remarkably high bar.52 In
1975, the number of votes required for cloture was reduced to three-fifths, or
sixty votes.53 The presence of a cloture rule underscores the imperative of
working together in passing major legislation. Indeed, over the ninety-five
years since the cloture rule was instituted, the party in charge has had a
filibuster-proof supermajority for only fifteen of those years.54
In the years after the cloture rule was passed, it was scarcely utilized.55
It was not until the early 1970s that we witnessed a Congress with the in-
stances of cloture reaching double digits.56 In the last three Congresses, how-
ever, the Senate has reached triple digits in the number of cloture motions
filed—shattering the previous high of eighty-two motions in the 104th Con-
gress.57 Indeed, over the course of 2007 through the present, the 385 cloture
motions filed represent twenty-eight percent of all such motions since 1917;

50
George Packer, The Empty Chamber, NEW YORKER, Aug. 9, 2010, at 38, 45.
51
See Cloture Rule, U.S. SENATE, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/
Cloture_Rule.htm (last visited Oct. 13, 2012).
52
See id.
53
See Filibuster and Cloture, U.S. SENATE, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/
common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm (last visited Oct. 13, 2012).
54
The instances in which one party held a supermajority, or filibuster-proof majority,
were the 74th, 75th, 76th, 77th, 89th, 94th, 95th, and first half of the 111th Congresses (in
some instances, Independents who caucused with the majority party were included as part of
the supermajority). See Party Division in the Senate, 1789–Present, U.S. SENATE, http://www.
senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm (last visited Nov. 1, 2012).
The Democrats lost the supermajority in early 2010 (halfway through the 111th Congress) with
the election of Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.), who famously became the 41st Republican
Senator. Meredith Shiner, Scott Brown is Sworn in as 41st GOP Sen., POLITICO (Feb. 4, 2010),
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32552.html.
55
Senate Action on Cloture Motions, U.S. SENATE, http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/ref-
erence/cloture_motions/clotureCounts.htm (last visited Nov. 2, 2012).
56
Id.
57
Id.
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30 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

the 271 cloture votes are twenty-seven percent of all cloture votes; and the
161 motions invoked add up to thirty-seven percent of the total.58
So why the dramatic increase in cloture in recent years? The majority in
the Senate would argue that its hands are tied because it believes the minor-
ity will filibuster each and every bill presented to the Senate. The minority
would argue that the majority has diminished the rights of its senators to
offer amendments to legislation (more in this trend in the next section) and
thoroughly and appropriately debate bills according to historical precedent.
Additionally, it is not the minority’s prerogative to file cloture motions—that
power rests with the Majority Leader—and so the rise in these instances is at
his discretion.59 He can file a cloture motion as soon as he brings legislation
to the floor, before any discussion occurs or any filibuster is clearly
delineated.60
It is also important to note that both the percentage of cloture petitions
that are vitiated—or withdrawn—as well as the percentage of cloture votes
passing is on the rise. In the 2000s, the percentage of cloture petitions with-
drawn averaged twenty-two percent.61 In the 112th Congress, the figure has
skyrocketed to thirty-nine percent.62 And the fifty-three percent success rate
for passing cloture votes in the 112th Congress represents the highest in the
last 40 years.63 Therefore, there is a careful distinction to be made in corre-
lating the filibuster with the cloture motion, as not every cloture motion is
filed in response to a filibuster.
The Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, Harry Reid and Mitch Mc-
Connell, reached a “gentleman’s agreement” at the outset of the 112th Con-
gress to avoid this scenario.64 Specifically, “McConnell . . . promised to
reduce the number of times the minority will block efforts to begin debate on
legislation. Reid, in exchange . . . pledged to limit the number of times he
will refuse Republicans opportunities to offer amendments.”65 Regrettably,
the agreement has not been maintained in large part due to the modern pres-
sures of partisanship within the Senate.66 Both members of the Senate and
outside analysts have questioned whether the breakdown in such an agree-

58
See id.
59
See generally Davis, supra note 46. R
60
See Davis, supra note 46, at 2. R
61
John Barrasso, Reid Doubles Down on Senate Dysfunction, SENATE REPUBLICAN POL’Y
COMM. (July 24, 2012), http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/reid-doubles-down-on-sen
ate-dysfunction.
62
Id.
63
Id.
64
Manu Raju, Filibuster Reform Goes Bust, POLITICO (Jan. 28, 2011), http://www.politico.
com/news/stories/0111/48325.html.
65
Alexander Bolton, Reid, McConnell Reach Agreement on Speeding Pace of Senate Bus-
iness, THE HILL (Jan. 27, 2011), http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/140745-reid-mcconnell-
reach-agreement-on-speeding-senates-pace-of-business.
66
See Ezra Klein, There’s Too Much Trust in the Senate, WASH. POST (June 22, 2012,
10:48 AM), http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/06/22/theres-too-
much-trust-in-the-senate.
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 31

ment is cause for the Senate to reassess its rules.67 Regardless of one’s views,
it seems unlikely that the use of cloture will return to the exception, rather
than the rule, in coming years.

D. Filling the Amendment Tree

As has been noted, the United States Senate is unique among institu-
tions of government. One of its hallmarks is the protection the body gives to
the rights of the minority. While the House of Representatives, and many
parliamentary-style bodies, are premised on majority rule, the Senate pro-
vides unprecedented deference to the party out of power. The effect of this
has been debated over the centuries. Some believe that this only serves to
gum up the works, so to speak, frustrating the majority and allowing for
undue roadblocks to accomplish legislative goals. Others believe that such
focus on minority rights fits perfectly with the intent of the Senate to be “the
world’s greatest deliberative body,” as it slows things down (think of the
Washington-Jefferson saucer conversation) and allows for unfettered, thor-
ough, and in-depth consideration and debate of issues.
One of the Senate’s giants and foremost legislative historians, former
Senator Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia—who served as both Majority
and Minority Leader during his fifty-one years in the Senate—was also one
of its strongest and most eloquent defenders of minority rights. He referred
to the institution as “the one place in the whole government where the mi-
nority is guaranteed a public airing of its views,”68 a place “for open and
free debate and for the protection of political minorities.”69 And he advised
that “as long as the Senate retains the power to amend and the power of
unlimited debate, the liberties of the people will remain secure.”70 It is es-
sential, then, that each Senate uphold and protect the rights of the minority.
It is also in the best interest of both parties, as they can fall in and out of the
majority at the discretion of the voters.
As such, a recent—and disturbing—trend related to the rights of the
minority is the increase of instances in which the Majority Leader has “filled
the amendment tree.”71 Because the Senate engages in full and open debate,
members are allowed to offer unlimited amendments to legislation that is
being considered on the Senate floor.72 Even if the amendment never re-
ceives a vote, it provides an opportunity for that Senator to highlight an issue
of concern to him or her, and offers a voice for his or her constituents. Of

67
See id.
68
143 CONG. REC. 22 (1997).
69
Id.
70
Id.
71
Cf. Mark Strand, Filling the Tree, CONG. INST. (June 12, 2008), http://conginst.org/2008/
06/12/filling-the-tree.
72
Senate Legislative Process, U.S. SENATE http://www.senate.gov/legislative/common/
briefing/Senate_legislative_process.htm#3 (last visited Nov. 3, 2012).
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32 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

course, it would be impossible to vote on every amendment filed under this

scenario.73 And so, under the normal course of action, the Senate will debate
a bill and a number of amendments, voting on them, until a reasonable time
has passed, then move to invoke cloture on the bill—limiting debate, but
still ensuring that amendments ruled germane to the underlying bill by the
Senate Parliamentarian are eligible to be voted on.
What has occurred on numerous occasions in recent years, instead, has
been the Senate Majority Leader moving to “fill the tree” and decide—
unilaterally—which amendments are voted on. In essence, the Senate’s pow-
ers are reduced to the whims of one individual, who determines both the
number of amendments that the Senate will vote on, as well as which
amendments will receive a vote. This procedure is truly antithetical to the
traditional operation of the United States Senate. The effective result is what
occurs in the House of Representatives with the so-called “closed rule,”
which prevents amendments and substitutes from being offered to a bill.
As of November 11, 2012, the current Majority Leader has filled the
tree more than sixty times since he assumed this leadership role in 2007.74
That is an average of over ten instances per year.75 This may not sound dra-
matic, until it is compared with previous Majority Leaders. From 1991
through 2006, the previous six Majority Leaders employed this tactic
roughly 40 times collectively.76
One egregious example of this trampling of minority rights is action on
the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act in July 2012.77 The Majority
Leader bypassed the committee process and brought the bill directly to the
Senate Floor.78 The minority then voted in this instance to allow the Senate
to proceed to the bill as part of an 80–14 vote on July 10th,79 but the Major-
ity Leader still “filled the amendment tree” and dictated that there would be
votes on only two amendments, both of his personal choosing.80 Every other
Senator was prohibited from having his or her concerns even raised, let
alone voted upon. As such, the legislation progressed no further, as Republi-
cans largely voted against invoking cloture on the bill on July 12th.81

73
In a traditional open amendment process, Senators can offer any amendment to an un-
derlying bill, regardless of whether or not it is germane to that legislation. At times, Senators
come to the floor to file several hundred amendments.
74
Barrasso, supra note 61. R
75
See Barrasso, supra note 61. R
76
Barrasso, supra note 61. R
77
S. 2237, 112th Cong. (2012).
78
See Bill Summary & Status 112th Congress (2011–2012) S.2237: All Congressional
Actions, LIBRARY OF CONG., http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d112:68:./temp/~bdz
VCd:@@@X (last visited Nov. 5, 2012).
79
S. 2237, Vote No. 174, July 10, 2012.
80
Daniel Strauss, Senate Stalls on Small-business Bill, Bush-Era Tax Rate Extension Pro-
posals, THE HILL (July 11, 2012), http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/237449-senate-
fails-to-move-forward-on-small-business-bill-bush-era-tax-rate-proposals.
81
S. 2237, Vote No. 177, July 12, 2012.
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 33

The danger inherent in this new trend is obvious. If not for the ability of
unlimited debate, the right to an open amendment process, and consideration
of minority rights, what differentiates the Senate from the House of
Representatives?

V. “T HE FORMERLY ROUTINE IS NOW THE TENDENTIOUS”

In writing this piece, I am not in search of some halcyon day of the

United States Senate, when everything was cordial and Senators passed leg-
islation without rigorous, passionate debate and no one was disappointed.
That day never existed, and it never will. However, the purpose of this arti-
cle is to explore how partisanship has brought the United States Senate in
particular to a low point, in both public opinion (Congress’s approval rating
now hovers around the low teens) and legislative accomplishment.82
In exploring the underlying factors that have helped bring the Senate to
this state, let me offer a few examples of how the Senate has worked prop-
erly in the past. These instances reinforce the notion that we must be able to
work in the future to regain the trust of the American people and achieve
major goals for the nation.
I am frequently reminded of a bipartisan retreat for members of the
House of Representatives in Hershey, Pennsylvania in the 1990s where ac-
complished historian David McCullough put Congress in perspective:
“Think what your institution has achieved,” he observed. “It was
Congress that created the Homestead Act. It was Congress that
ended slavery. It was Congress that ended child labor. It was Con-
gress that built the Panama Canal and the railroads. It was Con-
gress that created Social Security. It was Congress that passed the
Voting Rights Act. It was Congress that sent Lewis and Clark to
the West and sent us on voyages to the moon.”83
He pointed out that some acts of Congress, like the Marshall Plan and Lend
Lease, were achieved under crisis conditions84—much like those our econ-
omy is experiencing today.
More recently, some Congressional achievements that I have been a
part of demonstrate that the system can still work. In 1986, Congress did the
seemingly impossible by overhauling our tax code85—something that is des-
perately required again today, twenty-seven years later. In fact, bipartisan

82
Jeffery Jones, Congress’ Approval Poised to Be Lowest in an Election Year, GALLUP
(Sept. 14, 2012), http://www.gallup.com/poll/157475/congress-approval-poised-lowest-elec
tion-year.aspx.
83
David McCullough, Address to Bipartisan Congressional Retreat (March 1997) (tran-
script available at http://capitolwords.org/date/1997/03/13/E460-2_bipartisan-congressional-
retreat).
84
Id.
85
Ron Wyden & Olympia Snowe, Power of Partnership, POLITICO (Nov. 2, 2011), http://
www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67455.html.
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34 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

tax reform seemed so far-fetched when President Ronald Reagan first pro-
posed it in his 1984 State of the Union address, members in the chamber
laughed. Reagan, in his characteristic wit, asked: “I said something
funny?”86 But we set to work, and we discovered that working together,
Republicans and Democrats can lower rates for businesses and working fam-
ilies and make the Tax Code fairer by eliminating tax breaks. Working to-
gether, Democrats and Republicans can make tax compliance less of a
burden on U.S. taxpayers and a bipartisan effort can promote economic
growth and certainty by moving away from what has become common prac-
tice of temporary tax extensions. Indeed, the 1986 law helped spur a period
of economic confidence in which more than 6.3 million jobs were created in
the following two years.87
In 1995, the Senate began debating the welfare reform bill, and it was
believed by many to be an exercise in futility. But—in small groups—mem-
bers from both parties, sensing the exhaustion and despair of a welfare sys-
tem begun with the best of intentions, set aside their party labels and focused
on the first major overhaul since the Great Society. I and other moderate
Republicans worked with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Senator Chris
Dodd (D-Conn.)—a true “odd couple” when it comes to the Senate—and
with Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) to reach agreement on child care,
triggering a compromise which allowed the Senate to pass welfare reform by
an astonishing 87–12 vote.88 Ultimately, this bill became the foundation for
the final reform package signed into law by President Clinton.89
These lessons are critical for members of both sides to recall. At pre-
sent, as many have noted, it seems that the Senate is incapable of handling
the smallest matters, let alone grand challenges like tax reform, job creation,
and economic growth. Indeed, the Senate has failed to pass a budget resolu-
tion—as mandated by the Constitution90 and in statute91—in over 1,250
days, or three-and-a-half years.92
As a March 2012 New York Times article titled The Formerly Routine is
Now Tendentious aptly describes:
Some things that Congress does are meant to be difficult: budgets,
tax law changes, the health care overhaul, the undoing of the
health care overhaul. But there are a host of things that used to be

86
1984 State of the Union Address, 20 WEEKLY COMP. PRES. DOCS. 87, 90 (Jan. 25,
1984).
87
Wyden & Snowe, supra note 85. R
88
H.R. 4, Vote No. 443, Sept. 19, 1995.
89
See Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Pub. L.
No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105.
90
U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8.
91
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, 2 U.S.C. § 601 (2006).
92
Grim Milestone: Democrat-Led Senate Fails to Pass a Budget for Three and a Half
Years, SENATE REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE (Oct. 29, 2012), http://www.republican.senate.gov/
public/index.cfm/2012/10/grim-milestone-democrat-led-senate-fails-to-pass-a-budget-for-
three-and-a-half-years.
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 35

almost routine that the 112th Congress has managed to make labo-
rious and at times downright tedious—a departure from the tradi-
tional desires of members to pass legislation during an election
year and claim accomplishments to trot out back home.93
Even in 2011—the year after an election year, when Congress tradition-
ally works in a more bipartisan manner to pass legislation that must be
passed but that members do not want to consider during the more politicized
election years—was highly unproductive.94 One example stands out more
than any other: the debt ceiling debacle.

VI. DEBT CEILING DEBACLE

As a new Congress was sworn in at the beginning of January 2011, we

knew repairing and revitalizing the economy would be challenging. But we
needed to start the work immediately, because at that time, there had been no
appreciable, demonstrable improvement in our economy.
At the outset, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner wrote to
members of Congress on January 6, 2011, about the imperative of raising the
debt ceiling,95 and I—like many of my colleagues—assumed we would find
a means of addressing the issue. After all, we had done so before. According
to the Treasury Department, Congress had acted seventy-eight times since
1960 to “raise, extend or alter” the definition of the debt limit.96 Forty-nine
of those instances occurred under Republican presidents, and twenty-nine
times under Democratic presidents.97 Furthermore, we had just undertaken a
successful lame duck at the end of the 111th Congress, which seemed to
promise more cooperation and bipartisanship that we had witnessed of late.
In his letter, Secretary Geithner wrote that the debt limit would have to
be increased as early as March 31st, and he urged Congress to act quickly.98
Indeed, Secretary Geithner wrote:
[d]efault would effectively impose a significant and long-lasting
tax on all Americans and all American businesses and could lead
to the loss of millions of American jobs. Even a very short-term or
limited default would have catastrophic economic consequences

93
Jennifer Steinhauer, The Formerly Routine is Now Tendentious, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 24,
2012, at A12.
94
See, e.g., Ben Pershing, In 2011, Fewer Bills, Fewer Laws and Plenty of Blame, WASH.
POST (Dec. 5, 2011), http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-2011-fewer-bills-fewer-laws-
and-plenty-of-blame/2011/12/05/gIQA566iXO_story.html.
95
Letter from Timothy Geithner, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury, to Harry Reid, Major-
ity Leader, U.S. Senate (Jan. 6, 2011), available at http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Doc-
uments/Letter.pdf.
96
Debt Limit, U.S. DEP’T OF THE TREASURY (July 20, 2012), http://www.treasury.gov/
initiatives/pages/debtlimit.aspx.
97
Id.
98
Letter from Timothy Geithner to Harry Reid, supra note 95. R
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36 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

that would last for decades . . . . For these reasons, I am requesting

that Congress act to increase the limit early this year, well before
the threat of default becomes imminent.99
After an initial warning that a default could occur within three months,
increasing the debt limit should have been one of the first matters we tack-
led. There was nothing on our legislative calendar that should have pre-
vented us from dealing with this critical issue in a systematic manner. Yet
we delayed and deferred action on the issue, as the date for default continued
to move into the future. First, Secretary Geithner said we needed to act
before May 16th, instead of March 31st.100 Then, on May 16th, Secretary
Geithner announced that we would run out of money on August 2nd.101 In
the meantime, on April 18th, Standard & Poor’s revised its outlook on our
nation’s AAA credit rating—which we had held consistently since 1941—to
negative, indicating that a downgrade was possible.102 It wasn’t until August
1st that the House finally passed the Budget Control Act to avert a default,
and the Senate followed suit in the early morning hours of August 2nd.103
As a result of this wholly dysfunctional exercise, our economy suffered.
We ultimately did lose our sterling AAA credit rating from Standard &
Poor’s, which cited “[t]he political brinksmanship of recent months high-
lights what we see as America’s governance becoming less stable, less effec-
tive and less predictable,” in making its determination.104 Furthermore, a
study by three economists for the American Enterprise Institute released in
October 2011 showed that the debt ceiling dispute precipitated the worst
uncertainty of any event in the last thirty years, including September 11th
and the fall of Lehman Brothers.105 In the end, this incident “underscored for
many Americans the utter dysfunction in our politics and the disdain of our
elected officials for finding solutions to big problems,” in the words of noted
Congressional scholars Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein.106

99
Letter from Timothy Geithner to Harry Reid, supra note 95. R
100
Letter from Timothy Geithner, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury, to Harry Reid, Major-
ity Leader, U.S. Senate (Apr. 4, 2011), available at http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/
Documents/FINAL%20Letter%2004-04-2011%20Reid%20Debt%20Limit.pdf.
101
Letter from Timothy Geithner, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury, to Harry Reid, Major-
ity Leader, U.S. Senate (May 16, 2011), available at http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/
Documents/20110516Letter%20to%20Congress.pdf.
102
See NIKOLA SWANN, STANDARD & POOR’S, CREDIT FAQ: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE
REVISION OF THE OUTLOOK ON THE U.S. GOVERNMENT RATING 2 (2011).
103
Budget Control Act of 2011, Pub. L. No. 112-25, 125 Stat. 240.
104
NIKOLA SWANN, STANDARD & POOR’S, RESEARCH UPDATE: UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA LONG-TERM RATING LOWERED TO ‘AA+’ ON POLITICAL RISKS AND RISING DEBT
BURDEN; OUTLOOK NEGATIVE 3 (2011).
105
See Steven J. Davis, Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom, Business Class: Policy Uncer-
tainty is Choking Recovery, AM. ENTER. INST. (Oct. 6, 2011), http://www.aei.org/article/busi
ness-class-policy-uncertainty-is-choking-recovery.
106
THOMAS E. MANN & NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN, IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN IT LOOKS: HOW
THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM COLLIDED WITH THE NEW POLITICS OF EXTREMISM
3–4 (2012).
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 37

This should have been the example we used over the past year to
change our ways and work together to solve the immense problems facing
our country. This debacle should have been a rallying cry for us to shun the
partisanship in favor of bipartisanship. Yet, to this point, it is clear that has
not been the case. This legislative logjam does not have to be inevitable; yet,
what are the prospects for change in the future?

VII. THE IMPENDING “FISCAL CLIFF”

As of the time of writing this piece, the Congress must still tackle what
has been labeled the “fiscal cliff” by Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben
Bernanke.107 As a result of political obfuscation over the past year, we will
have at most thirty-six business days in the lame duck session to confront
myriad challenges that require resolution by the end of the year. These in-
clude a potential $500 billion increase in taxes nationwide, including an esti-
mated average increase of $2,000 for middle class families;108 deep across-
the-board spending cuts as part of the sequestration; extension of unemploy-
ment insurance; fixing Medicare reimbursement for doctors; a potential in-
crease in the debt ceiling; and twelve individual appropriations bills that, as I
write, have yet to be considered in the Senate.
We can no longer delay and defer; we can no longer engage in partisan
battles and then fail to resolve the issues at hand. It is absolutely essential
that the Senate be the Senate again. I have called on the Senate leadership on
two occasions—in both April and July of 2012—to instruct the committees
of jurisdiction to begin their work on these formidable challenges.109 As I
wrote in my July letter:
What is required is the opportunity to thoughtfully scrutinize the
approaches—the pros and cons and benefits and drawbacks—so
that we can have a reasoned discussion during lame duck, rather

107
See Highlights: Bernanke’s Q&A Testimony to House Panel, REUTERS, Feb. 29, 2012,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/29/us-usa-fed-bernanke-idUSTRE81S1DO20120229;
see also Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy, U.S. HOUSE COMM. ON FIN. SERVS.
(Feb. 29, 2012), http://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=281
399.
108
ROBERTON WILLIAMS ET AL., URBAN INSTITUTE AND URBAN-BROOKINGS TAX POLICY
CENTER, TOPPLING OFF THE FISCAL CLIFF: WHOSE TAXES RISE AND HOW MUCH? 1 (2012).
109
Letter from Olympia Snowe, Republican Deputy Whip, U.S. Senate, to Harry Reid,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate (Apr. 26, 2012), available at http://www.snowe.senate.gov/pub-
lic/index.cfm/pressreleases?ContentRecord_id=032653ba-a579-44f1-8e33-486c0eb840a2&
ContentType_id=ae7a6475-a01f-4da5-aa94-0a98973de620&Group_id=2643ccf9-0d03-4d09-
9082-3807031cb84a&MonthDisplay=4&YearDisplay=2012; Letter from Olympia Snowe,
Republican Deputy Whip, U.S. Senate, to Harry Reid, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate & Mitch
McConnell, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate (July 19, 2012), available at http://www.snowe.
senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=ef26ca1c-5b19-4107-82a4-af404d1baf18.
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38 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

than ending up with policies drafted behind closed doors by a se-

lect few that could also result in unintended consequences.110
Yet the only action to date has been a markup in the Senate Finance
Committee, on which I serve, the day that the Senate began its five-week
August recess.111 We considered a number of tax provisions that either had
already expired or are set to expire at the end of the year, and we made some
important progress. Hopefully, we have begun to build a consensus on tax
policy that will lead to greater bipartisanship in the future on long overdue
comprehensive tax reform.
But the gravity of the situation is apparent in our economic indicators.
Unemployment surpassed eight percent in February 2009, and remained
above that level for forty-three straight months.112 Economic growth remains
subpar, due in large part to the pervasive uncertainty across the private sec-
tor. An August article in the New York Times lays bare the way business
executives view the fiscal cliff. Titled Fearing an Impasse in Congress, In-
dustry Cuts Spending, the article details how American manufacturers are
holding back on hiring new employees and making new investments because
of Congress’s inaction on these far-reaching issues.113
One business executive quoted in the story says, “The fiscal cliff is the
primary driver of uncertainty, and a person in my position is going to make a
decision to postpone hiring and investments . . . . We don’t have to get to the
edge of the cliff before the damage is done.”114 The simple fact of the matter
is, private sector businesses—the source of our nation’s job growth—are
making decisions in anticipation of the next calendar year, and many have
been unable to proceed given the uncertain tax and financial landscape. By
the time this article is published, we will know what the outcome of the lame
duck session relative to these fiscal cliff issues; that said, we should have
worked sooner to begin addressing these issues instead of waiting for the
eleventh hour to arrive.

110
Letter from Olympia Snowe, Republican Deputy Whip, U.S. Senate, to Harry Reid,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate & Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate (July 19,
2012), available at http://www.snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=ef26c
a1c-5b19-4107-82a4-af404d1baf18.
111
See Open Executive Session to Consider The Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty
Act of 2012, U.S. SENATE COMM. ON FIN. (Aug. 2, 2012), http://www.finance.senate.gov/hear-
ings/hearing/?id=c36e29ca-5056-a032-5260-7997a539f948 (video of markup and link to sev-
eral related documents); see also Press Release, Olympia Snowe, U.S. Senator, Snowe
Statement on Senate Finance Committee Tax Extender Markup (Aug. 2, 2012), http://www.
snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ContentRecord_id=89c59f3b-efba-408b-8b
1a-897f5d8009fd&ContentType_id=ae7a6475-a01f-4da5-aa94-0a98973de620&Group_id=26
43ccf9-0d03-4d09-9082-3807031cb84a&MonthDisplay=8&YearDisplay=2012.
112
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, supra note 20. R
113
Nelson D. Schwarz, Fearing an Impasse in Congress, Industry Cuts Spending, N.Y.
TIMES, Aug. 6, 2012, at A1.
114
Id.
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2013] Modern Partisanship in the 112th Congress 39

VIII. CONCLUSION

As I have said previously, I regrettably do not believe that the partisan-

ship and polarization of recent years will recede in the near term. Charles
Mahtesian and Jim VandeHei in a May 2012 article for the Capitol Hill
newspaper Politico posed a question: “Think Congress is a big, dysfunction,
polarized mess?”115 They quickly answer their own question: “Just wait: It’s
going to get worse.”116 Chances are, whoever wins control of the Senate in
November is bound to have the slimmest of majorities—even closer than the
present 53-47 control of the Democrats.117
Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal has noted that the polarization
across the country is also unlikely to subside. The Journal, in conjunction
with NBC News, prepared a “county-by-county analysis of political atti-
tudes based on results from all polling done this year.”118 The results are
stunning. “In the most politically competitive counties—the country’s swing
counties—the race for control of Congress now appears dead even,” he
wrote, with roughly equal numbers of people preferring Republicans as
Democrats.119
“More striking,” he continues, “is the way Republican counties have
grown more red and Democratic counties more blue.”120 Those in Demo-
cratic counties prefer a Congress controlled by the Democrats by a 13-point
margin, a wider gap than in polling prior to the 2006 midterm elections,
when the party regained control of the House and the Senate.121 In Republi-
can counties, it’s a 15-point margin in their favor—also wider than the gap
in 2010, which featured a major realignment in the House.122
These figures, combined with both other polling and the 2012 election
results,123 indicate that polarization among the electorate remains high. In-
deed, it is no wonder, then, that it seems that we live in a time when many of
our nation’s elected officials value partisanship and ideology more than ser-
vice to the American people. We live in a time when the campaigning never
stops and the governing all too frequently never begins; public disenchant-

115
Charles Mahtesian & Jim VandeHei, Congress: It’s Going to Get Worse, POLITICO
(May, 2, 2012), http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75771.html.
116
Id.
117
This figure includes Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in
the majority, as they have chosen to caucus with the Democrats.
118
Gerald F. Seib, No Sign of Voter Polarization Waning, WALL ST. J., July 10, 2012, at
A4.
119
Id.
120
Id.
121
Id.
122
Id.
123
See, e.g., Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years, PEW RESEARCH CTR.
(June 4, 2012), http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2277/republicans-democrats-partisanship-partisan-
divide-polarization-social-safety-net-environmental-protection-government-regulation-
independents.
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40 Harvard Journal on Legislation [Vol. 50

ment with politics runs high; and issues and outcomes are “spun” by spin
doctors.
But the enduring fact is, we are a great nation with resilient citizens
who have overcome the most powerful trials of the 20th century. What our
success in the future will require from its political leaders is cooperation, not
confrontation; civility, not hostility; vision, not division. It will require a
thorough and adequate review of how we consider legislation, including ex-
ploring potential changes to the filibuster, use of cloture, and ways to more
consistently ensure the open amendment process that has been a hallmark
and strength of the United States Senate. It will require a change in behavior,
as members put partisanship aside for the good of the country—something
that I strongly believe must be rewarded at the ballot box if it is to occur.
And it will require the restoration of confidence in our nation’s leaders and
our institutions. That confidence, I believe, will only be secured by evidence
of a new and lasting bipartisanship among our leaders.